House teeing up on oil-and-gas permitting, fracking bills; White House immediately issues veto threats on both

posted at 6:01 pm on November 20, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

The Obama administration is unfailingly fond of implying that the credit for the United States’ growing energy production and lessened oil imports belongs to the effectiveness and the foresight of their domestic energy policies, the majority of our heightened energy-sector productivity is due to industry activity on state and private lands, while production on federal lands has actually declined. Innovations in hydraulic fracturing especially have been a major driver of the otherwise pathetically meager economic recovery we have witnessed over the past few years, but predictably, that hasn’t stopped the Obama administration from hovering the regulatory hammer over the burgeoning drilling practice — they aren’t ones to voluntarily cede opportunities for acquiring new authority, you know — and the House GOP is trying to get out in front of the administration on both the permitting and the regulatory fronts with a pair of new energy bills, via the National Journal:

Much of the debate scheduled for the House floor Wednesday will focus on legislation sponsored by Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, to block the Interior Department from regulating fracking on public lands where state regulations are already on the books. …

“We have a shale-energy revolution in this country and the federal government shouldn’t be doing anything to jeopardize that,” Flores told National Journal Daily. “This bill would put the power to regulate back into the hands of the people who do it best—the states.” …

“Imposing a ‘one-size-fits-all’ federal regulation on hydraulic fracturing would add costly and duplicative layers of red tape that would only stand in the way of increased American energy production,” Hastings said. …

The House will also vote Wednesday on legislation sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., that would speed up the time it takes for companies to receive a permit to drill on federal lands and open up more federal lands to drilling.

The oil-and-gas permitting bill already passed with the House’s approval on Wednesday afternoon, and the fracking legislation is expected to easily pass the House as well — except that it probably won’t matter too much, because the White House has already issued their obligatory veto threats on both counts, via The Hill:

The White House is threatening to veto House GOP bills that would thwart Interior Department hydraulic fracturing rules and force regulators to speed up oil and gas drilling permits. …

The bill to block planned Interior Department regulation of the oil and gas extraction technique dubbed fracking would prevent Interior from ensuring that it occurs in a “safe and responsible manner,” the White House said.

“The bill, as reported, would undermine these efforts and instead require [Interior’s Bureau of Land Management] to defer to existing State regulations on hydraulic fracturing on Federal lands, regardless of the quality or comprehensiveness of the State regulations — thereby preventing consistent environmental protections,” the White House said of the bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas).Interior is preparing rules, which would apply to fracking that occurs on federal and Indian lands, that force disclosure of chemicals used in the fracking process, and create standards around well integrity and management of so-called flowback water.

Yes, because heaven knows, federalism — ew — cannot possibly work for much of anything, can it? How could we depend on the states themselves to have the wherewithal to determine what is in their own best interests, i.e. bettering their own economies as well as safeguarding the environment? No way can they be entrusted with such a task! Nope, it’s all much better left up to the federal government’s top-down, politicized bureaucratizing. Duh.

Blowback

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Can’t the States just Regulate the Interior Department out of Existence? After all, the Interior Department is doing more harm damaging the environment with their reams and reams of regulatory (tree killing) documents, than they are helping.

You know, I just wish there was a simple way for every pure, Red state to secede and form their Union and put a fence around it 10′ high, electrically charge with signs stating “No Liberals”. Sick of em.

Fixed for accuracy. The filthy lazy stupid bastard in the White House needs an enemy to move the focus away from Obamacare. He will threaten to veto bills naming Post Offices for Iraq and Afghanistan war heroes if it moves attention away from Obamacare. He is spoiling for a budget battle in January and a debt ceiling fight in February. By March there will be prolonged salvos of distraction squirrels. Don’t give into it. The real battle here is the repeal of Obamacare.

So, House Republicans are being obstructionist and partisan, but Obama is vetoing Republican bills before they’ve even been written. Evidently it’s just extremist for our legislature to even talk about these subjects, and writing legislation is a form of terrorism.

Former President George W. Bush had some quick advice to bring a boom to the job market during a conference in Pittsburgh: Start construction on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Only his words were more colorful: “Build the damn thing.”

Mr. Bush’s advice came as he was keynote speaker at the annual Developing Unconventionals, or DUG, energy conference.

“I think the goal of the country ought to be ‘how do we grow the private sector?’ That ought to be the laser-focus of any administration. And therefore, once that’s the goal, an issue like Keystone pipeline becomes a no-brainer,” Mr. Bush said, according to Keystone-XL-Pipeline-Will-Create-Jobs-Build-the-Damn-Thing” target=”_blank”>a recording obtained by Breitbart.(More…)
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It’s not too early for the RNC to start running regular adverts highlighting the bills that were passed during the 113th Congress by the House and promptly received a veto promise from the WH before being unceremoniously placed in Harry Reid’s wastebasket.

For an Administration that claims to be focused on providing assistance, ‘fairness’, and ‘justice’ to the poor, their energy policies directly and adversely impact those same poor and lower middle class.

The House needs to pass it ASAP, send it to the Senate and force the Dems to block it. There’s a chance enough Dems might actually force Reid to bring it to the floor where it might pass….putting Obama in the rock/hard place position. Even if they don’t allow it through…the Republicans can point to yet another attack on the economy and the middle class by Dems. It’s a win-win.

Moochelle says dear leader sings a lot in the bathroom. He must not have heard about Prep H. Add that to his long list of ‘I didn’t knows’. How can he issue a veto threat when the bills haven’t even been read yet? Oh, wait.